Is your mechanic ripping you off?

As the token mechanic's wife out of all the people I know, I get a ton of questions about whether some tech is trying to get more for a job than it's worth. People often are afraid of getting screwed over by mechanics. I think that sucks, but I can understand why they think that. I have seen it happen to friends before. (In that instance, she was quoted $500 for a major repair, and it turned out all her car needed was a water pump and a thermostat. They got those parts for under $30 and Thak did the job for a 12-pack and some sushi.) Even so, I have to say, the majority of mechanics are honest, and most, contrary to popular belief, do not prey on unsuspecting women who come in alone with their cars. A really easy way to reduce your odds of that is to demand that your car ONLY be worked on by ASE Certified technicians. They have to be honest, and bill only for jobs they have done and that actually needed to be done, or they will lose their licensing. Thak being ASE Certified, we have learned a lot about what that really means, and one of the most interesting things to me was this stipulation.

Now, here's something I hear a lot:

"Anna, I need to talk to Thak. Those idiots at [insert name of dealership here] quoted me X amount of money for Y repair! Can you believe these ripoff artists?!"

In at least 90% of cases, Thak can substantiate that the repair in question really does bill at that amount.

Here's the disconnect. In a lot of cars, particularly newer model cars, they have shoved so much stuff into the engines that it takes a lot of work just to get to the relatively minor part that may need replacement. Since this takes a long time, the labor on replacing a $20 part may bill at $170 if it's a two hour job. (That's for this city. Other cities have higher or lower average labor costs.) Is that a lot of money? Oh. My. God. Yes. Is the mechanic ripping you off, though? No, actually he's not. This problem, as much as it pains me to admit it, is the fault of the engineers. Engineers don't work on engines in the body of a car. They work on them on stands. Therefore, things have been designed in such a way that it is time consuming to work on in a real world environment, and that's where your high shop bills are coming from, not from a dishonest mechanic in the majority of cases.

None of this is to say you shouldn't ask Thak. I would rather 100 people ask Thak just to be sure they're not getting screwed by some shop, than for one person to really get had by some dishonest mechanic. Unfortunately, though, high labor charges are not the mark of a dishonest shop, nor even a prima donna mechanic who thinks he's worth more than he is. They are the result of the design of cars in recent years, and where stuff is located, plain and simple. If you want to reduce your repair bills, you can do that by learning to change your own oil, learning how to replace a battery on your own, or even using the auto craft shop on post for this. Even minor repairs like this will really cut down on your shop bills so that when you do need some part replaced that is harder to do, it'll be a little less painful.